Men and Measurements

What is with men and measurements - distances, curvatures, heights (oh yes! most definitely heights)? They seem to have an obsession with quantifying things - what I can measure, I have the measure of. The Freudian sub-text is rather hard to escape - :-).
I have read 2 books in the last month, both on men trying to measure the previously immeasurable. Well written, both are epic-movie-worthy sagas.

The Great Arc of the Indian Meridian: To call an exercise in traversing a 2400km long path - dotted with hills, plains, rivers; through forest, flood, fever; evading the clutches of thugs, thieves; placating the religious feathers of the "natives"- a mere survey, would never do it justice. This was the Great Trigonometrical Survey - 50 years, 1000s of men, millions of pounds.
Two men, pursued the survey with fanatical obsession, devoting their entire lives to the cause. William Lambton, lies in an obscure grave somewhere in Madhya Pradesh, long forgotten in Britain and India. His exacting standards of accuracy (3.5 inches over 400km!) were something the Survey's later proponents would never waver from.
George Everest was caustic, insensitive and abusive of colleagues and most definitely did not set sights ever on the mountain that now makes his, a household name.
The book, by John Keay, is a fast-paced read, capturing the sweep of the entire sub-continent and its flavors.Keay spends very little time explaining the basics of surveying before moving onto the men, their characters and their tribulations. The book takes us across a country so captivating and diverse that the only way to measure it was to stay indifferent. It is a slim, dramatic and fast-paced volume touching upon history, politics and the passion that drives scientific research.

Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann has been a best seller in multiple languages selling more than a million copies since publication. Kehlmann takes two historical figures - Baron von Humboldt, explorer, naturalist, aristocrat and Gauss, mathematician, scientist, commoner - and fashions a witty, ironic, magnificent novel of politics, revolution, science and personalities.
The book starts with Humboldt and Gauss meeting, at their dotage, in Berlin on the sidelines of the German Scientific Congress. From there, it travels back in time, chapter after clever chapter, charting the parallel course of their live, only for these lines to meet, as Gauss found they always do, in the end.
The central theme is displacement - Humboldt measured the world in absolute, traversing across Central and South America, measuring every peak, every river crossing, the line of the equator with precision. Gauss on the other hand, hardly stirred out of his hometown of Gottigen (he found his job as a surveyor a painful distraction) and imagined space as "folded, bent and very strange".

The personalities of these men are contradictory as well; Humboldt the aristocrat was tolerant and given to forgiven the transgressions of fellow humans, Gauss -arrogant and given to sadistic jibes at others. Humboldt's preference for boys is hardly evident, while Gauss is debauched, sowing his seeds at random, as long as they don't interfere with his research.
Painting their lives in the background of Napoleanic wars and upheavals across Europe, gives Kehlmann a chance to contemporize - the futility of war was plainly evident then as now. Unlike most post-war German fiction, Measuring the World is witty, sending itself up on more than one occasion (novels -"the perfect way to capture the most fleeting essence of the present for the future"). The ending is deliciously ironic (in light of recent events) with Eugen (Gauss's son and butt of his cruelest jibes) rebelling against his father and sailing to the icon of a liberal world - the US!
Craftily written, well translated, Kehlmann's book is loaded with asides and observations that remain with us long after its two lead-men and their obsession with measurement has been given a rest.

Fear, Envy, Malice...

Why do I insist on doing such things? There seems to be no control of mind over body, a hormonal rush to the head results in me careening off-road, a roller-coaster ride ...the path ending suddenly and me falling off the face of the planet!
There we are, back to where I started...alone...with just one difference - there's yet another part in my heart eating itself out, at the rate at which I am moving from one disaster to another - not much of my heart will remain and I can start on the lungs!
Jealousy eats into me...why does it become so murky and mixed up? Professional spills over into the personal and vice versa...there is a double blow on my ego that sends me screaming, arms flailing over the edge...into an abyss. How is it that personal rejection transforms into professional oneupmanship?
It torments me - unable to reconcile being a lesser woman and more importantly a lesser success (I know...there is no such thing...but can't bear to proclaim myself a failure!). How can it all come together so horribly well for someone else and so spectacularly wrong for me?
Self-pity - the easiest thing to sink into at this stage...an almost mind-numbing state of pain. It threatens to burst out of me any moment, taking control of me, pushing me from human to monster, debasing me. It simmers under the surface, slipping out in sharp comments, laced with bitterness and malice, uncharacteristically humorless.
Why can't I find people who can accept me as I am - warts and all? I know...too many warts, but still. There should be some place in this world for us ugly ones, right? Someone who can look beyond that should not be impossible to find - or maybe there is nothing beyond that. I don't know - one of these days I will wake up, not want to see my face ever again and action upon that thought.
Is it wrong to act upon impulses regardless of consequence, is it not possible to be free, uncaring, with even one's friends? Maybe these aren't friends...this is so confusing! Why don't I have any other choices in life?